


no version of this (where you come out on top)

by Zoanzon



Series: Future Comes Slow, a MCU remix [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (and perhaps this isn't either: but infinite possibilities means one Loki has walked this road), Canon Divergence - Post-Thor: The Dark World, Gen, Not Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, aka: taika's vision is one potential road; but not what best fits loki, and that's all that matters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 06:34:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18244340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoanzon/pseuds/Zoanzon
Summary: In one world, Loki spends his time as Asgard’s ruler drinking and ordering melodramatic plays of his and Thor’s past. Thanos is coming, and what better to enjoy himself before the universe’s inevitable demise?In another world, he’s not as resigned to the coming end. In another world, he decides to go down fighting. In another world, he decides to spite Odin, and spit on the idea of ‘perfect, unchanging’, stagnant Asgard.In another world, Loki does what a trickster god should: he comes at his problems sideways, so that his manipulations won't be noticed before its too late.(Or: When trying to conquer Midgard, Loki found himself fought off by six people, and saw them burn a chunk of Thanos’ forces in nuclear fire. Loki remembers this when he takes Odin’s place.)





	no version of this (where you come out on top)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nova](https://archiveofourown.org/works/401470) by [icarus_chained](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained). 



> So, I meant to post my follow-up to 'part of a bigger universe' sometime in the next few days, but the summary - like, that itself - popped into my head, and I felt myself compelled to write out the rest. aka: how all of my stuff has been written, by the seat of my pants in one go.
> 
> The main idea here is, Loki held Asgard's throne - had all the power -for some number of years. Yet, in Taika's Ragnarok, all he seemed to have done with this is drink and watch self-indulgent plays. This...is a counterpoint to that, because I can both like the movie as itself and dislike it for where it stands in the greater context of the series' meta-plot and certain characters' experiences and characterizations.

Loki - of Asgard, of Jotunheim, Odinson, Laufeyson, of Many Names and No Home - fell from the Bifrost into the void between stars and between worlds.

This remains true.

Loki was found, and broken ( ~~and unmade and remade and unmade and remade and remade~~ ) and reforged by ~~Tha~~ a titanic figure. He was given a scepter, and told to conquer a world.

He fails ( ~~or perhaps throws the fight; who can be sure?~~ ) and is captured, and taken home ( ~~but is it really home when one was a war-prize?~~ ) in chains, locked away as a prisoner, a monster. The prodigal son returneth, thought dead and is alive again, lost and is found; yet, no fattened calf awaits his return, just a dungeon cell.

A clock strikes, and worlds align, and yet another Stone makes itself known on Midgard, makes itself known to the Sons of Asgard. A clock strikes, and worlds align, and Loki of Asgard dies for his brother. Dies and does not die, thought dead but is alive again.

The prodigal son returns, and spirits his father away, takes his father’s form and his father’s throne.

This also remains true.

Yet, here the butterflies’ flitters shift courses; paths split.

In one world, Loki spends his time as Asgard’s ruler drinking and ordering melodramatic plays of his and Thor’s past. ~~Thano~~ The titanic one is coming, and what better to enjoy himself before the universe’s inevitable demise? The scars and marks from the titanic one’s touches go too deep ( ~~or perhaps not deep enough~~ ) and the revelations and losses of recent years have hurt too much. He has survived and survived and survived, and now just wants to _live_.

Yet, in another world, the wounds are not as deep ( ~~or perhaps have gone deep enough~~ ). In another world, enough of Loki is intact, and enough of him is shattered pieces pieced together again around the idea of justicerevengeretribution _avengement_.

In another world, Loki remembers just what it is to feel, and be motivated by, spite. Spite at ~~the titanic one~~ Thanos. Spite at his false father. Spite at the world - perfect, unchanging, _stagnant_ Asgard - which was supposed to be his home but never accepted him, and ~~grudging respect~~ spite for the world which fought off his invasion with six people.

In another world, Loki remembers what a joy and a drive and a _fuel_ spite can be, and remembers that multiple objectives can be accomplished with a single task. And honestly, wouldn’t that be more fun - more daring, more worthy of a trickster’s brazen goal, ~~more befitting one who knows what’s coming, and knows no one would listen or care, and has decided that shouldering the weight alone is better than no one at all~~ \- than merely daydrinking and watching past ~~tragedies~~ glories be remade as plays?

And so ~~Loki, trickster with a desperate plan~~ Odin, king of Asgard, changes course after centuries. And so Odin, king of Asgard, appears on Earth - appears before SHIELD, before the Avengers, before the United Nations - speaking of a coming doom and seeking an alliance, to exchange goods and information to better aid and prepare both realms. And so Odin, king of Asgard, takes the first steps in dissolving Asgard’s suzerainty over the Nine Realms in favor of a stronger union between worlds, a more _equal_ bond to better hold against the coming storm.

(And so Loki, son of no-one and no-where, bares his teeth in desperate grin. Let his deception be uncovered; let Thor blunder his way into his plots yet again; let Odin return from his magical addling and banishment to Midgard; let Earth’s Mightest Heroes unravel his deception. By the time they do, it will be too late to unwind all the changes.

If this is to be his last ploy, his last trick, his final mark, let it be the biggest one yet. Let its reverberations never die. Let the Nine Realms never be the same again, and the same for perfect, unchanging, _stagnant_ Asgard.)

In one world, Loki was sane enough ( ~~or resigned enough, or uncaring enough~~ ) to use his deception for day-drinking and and watching past ~~tragedies glories~~ memories be remade as plays.

In another, Loki decides that if he can’t protect the Nine Realms from Thanos (to throw in their face, to make them hurt at the idea of Asgard’s dishonored son saving them all, ~~to do for the universe what no one did for him~~ ), he’ll be damned sure to avenge them.

**Author's Note:**

> >   
> "You’re missing the point. There’s no throne. There is **no version of this where you come out on top**. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it."  
> \- Tony Stark, The Avengers  
> 


End file.
